Unit 6: Intelligence Flashcards
What are two examples for areas where society demanded development because of psychology?
School environment
Army and companies
What change did psychology bring to the school environment?
Lack of student classification system
-> creation of systems and analysis of children‘s abilities
-> group them by classrooms according to respective levels
What change did psychology bring to army and companies?
Reliable means of personell selection sought (need to select best candidates)
-> rely on applied part of psychology
Innativism
Individual characteristics of each person are of genetic origin
Environmentalism
Individual differences originate from environmental factors
Who was the father of differential psychology and what was the focus of this paradigm?
Sir Francis Galton
Interest in studying human being and individual differences
What was Galton‘s relation to Darwin and in how far was he influenced by him?
Darwin‘s cousin
Intelligence could be key factor in development of our species
-> differences in aptitude could be due to hereditary factor
=> derived from evolutionary theory
What were some of Galton’s biggest contributions on measurements?
Weather map
Finger print identification
(Human ear loses perception of high-frequence with age)
(Measured degree of boredom at scientific conferences)
What is intelligence according to Galton and what does it consist of?
Consists of sensitive acuity
Largely inherited
What was an indicator of high intellectual capacity according to Galton?
Study rate of eminence
What did Galton suggest in the context of eugenics?
Offspring of illustrious individuals
-> more likely to be more illustrious that normal population
=> encourage reproduction of people with good traits and discourage rest
Selective descent project
Based on theory of evolution
Intelligence as primary and fundamental marker of individual differences
Proposed governments of different countries to promote and subsidise project
-> strong disagreement
Even Darwin said Galton was a fool for this idea
What is the Word Association Test?
aka WAT
Research instrument to explore individual differences
Developed by Carl Jung as clinical diagnostic tool
What were Galton‘s takeaways from Jungs test?
Suggestion that there might be link between IQ and WA
What does a typical association test look like?
List of trigger words
-> response as fast as possible (say first word that relates to trigger)
Are IQ and WA linked?
Galton unable to find direct link
-> no
What else did Galton discover/ first describe/ invent?
Mental imagery
Anthropometric laboratory (effort to measure intelligence and individual differences)
statistical measures:
Correlation, Regression and Median (as central tendency)
Which contributions did Alfred Binet make?
Contributions to psychometrics and differential psychology
-> designed test to predict school performance
Alongside Simon: key for development of intelligence tests
Who was the father of French Experimental Psychology and why?
Binet
Directly measured complex mental operations
What did Binet perform research on?
Hysteria
Hypnosis
Memory
Childhood fears
Creativity
Thinking without images
Graphology
Individual psychology
Intelligence consists of various mental faculties
Binet & Henri (rejected Galton & Cattell)
Largely unsuccessful
Why did Binet and Henri reject Galton and Cattell?
- They (G&C) measured intelligence via sensory acuity and not through complex mental operations
- Binet considered that important variables varied by age
Binet, Simon and intelligence tests
Worked with mentally retarded children
Started creating test to differentiate intellectually normal children from not ‚normal‘ ones
-> developed first intelligence test that directly measures intelligence
What did the Intelligence Scale Binet-Simon consist of and what were its conclusions?
30 simple tests
-> 3 of motor development and 27 of cognitive abilities (applied to children of 2-12 years)
Conclusions:
- Importance of heredity
- people functioned below their capacity
-> capacity to grow
What was the controversy around the Intelligence Scale Binet-Simon?
Intended solely for practical purpose of identifying schoolchildren who require special attention
Fear it would be used to label children and limit their opportunities instead of improving their education
What did further revision of the scale lead to?
Establishment whether child performs above, below or same level as average for children of same age
Intellectual age
What is the intellectual age?
Most difficult test a child can pass depending on their age
If intellectual age 2+ years below chronological age
-> likely to have difficulties in school
Who introduced the concept of Mental/ Intellectual age?
William Stern
What is the IQ?
IQ= mental age: age
What did Terman suggest in the context of IQ?
IQ should be multiplied by 100 to remove decimals
-> more manageable unit of measurement
=> classification according to IQ
What is Charles Spearman known for?
Bifactor theory of intelligence
Founding of ‚London School‘ of psychology
What does the Bifactor Theory of Intelligence consist of?
General factor ‚G‘:
- common basis of intelligence
- vary from individuals but remain same for any one of them with correlated capacities
Specific factor ‚S‘:
- specific aptitudes
- vary from individuals and capacities
